Response to Vystrčil’s planned trip to Taiwan mixed

President Miloš Zeman says he would not recommend that Senate speaker Miloš Vystrčil go through with a plan to visit Taiwan in the summer. Mr. Zeman, who enjoys good relations with the Chinese leadership, said the prime minister, the foreign minister and the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies hadn’t recommended such a trip either.

However, opposition politicians have backed Mr. Vystrčil’s plan. The head of his Civic Democratic Party, Petr Fiala, said the Czech Republic was a free and sovereign state that would not take orders as to who could travel where. The Christian Democrats’ Marek Výborný said the decision showed that the Czech Republic would not be blackmailed.